


My Girls

by Caers



Category: DCU
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 19:25:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caers/pseuds/Caers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just something I wrote once for Sansets</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Girls

All of the monitors go black at the same time. Sam pushes back from the desk with wide eyes and pushes her hands into her short hair. It’s impossible. There is no way way it should happen. Her network, her system, it’s impenetrable. There’s no way...

**Hello, Cypher**

The cursor blinks at the end of the message that displays on all the monitors, and Samantha’s mouth drops open and she shakes her head.

**I’m afraid so. comes the reply.**

Sam looks up to the web cam positioned on the bank of monitors. The green light isn’t on, but it’s obvious she’s being watched.

**You’ve been quite busy lately. the messages continue.**

**Who is this?** Sam types back. She glances up at the camera again. There’s no way she’s going to talk to it, even though she has no doubt she’ll be heard.

The cursor blinks for almost a full minute before there’s an answer.

**Who do you think this is?**

Sam stares at the screen and feels a touch of fear, wondering if this is just a ‘hello’, or something more; but at least she doesn’t have to wonder for long.

**I’d like you to do something for me.**

*

She pushes the goggles up and sits back on her heels. Nothing unusual registering on the HUD she’s built into them. Not on the IR, or the night vision. There are the normal homeless, and vagrants, a couple of fires burning in oil drums.

She stands and stretches, checks her watch. Time for her meeting with the Oracle. So far all communications have been over her computer, but this time she’s been called here, although she doesn’t have any idea what for.

In the last two months of working with the Oracle... Well, working for, because Sam gets a request for something, information, or access to a system somewhere, and she’ll always get it, do it, and then there’ll be silence for weeks, and any request from Sam for information from Oracle has been ignored.

And over the last two months Sam has gotten the distinct impression that she is being tested. In more than just her tech skills. But she can’t very well refuse the requests. Not when the Oracle can access her computers so easily. Who knows what else the Oracle has on her?

Still another half hour to go.

Sam makes her way off the roof of the building via the fire escape, and drops into the alley. She zips up her leather jacket against the chill in the air, pulls the goggles back down.

Cameras, but only the usual city installed ones. She’d tried to get access to them but they weren’t in working order and she hasn’t had a chance to install new ones tied to her own network. Although she isn’t ruling out being watched on them, anyway. She isn’t going to put it past someone like the Oracle.

She taps her earpiece, which connects her to her remote network. “Display messages,” she says, and the command types up in the HUD of her goggles, followed by a scrolling list of messages. “Filter for no return address.” Just one message. “Display.”

The HUD blacks out then, and Sam curses under her breath; she hates it when Oracle does this. It takes a few seconds for the cursor to appear in the centre of the goggles, before **Hello, Cypher** displays. The words vanish, replaced by a green eye on each eyeglass. The earpiece crackles, and a computerised voice speaks, flat and genderless.

‘Thank you for showing up.’

“Well, I didn’t really have much of a choice,” Sam replies. “Although if this is your idea of a meeting, couldn’t I have just stayed at home?”

‘I like doing it this way.’ Sam’s impressed, despite her annoyance. It’s a feat to crack her network, let alone her remote net, and so quickly at that. ‘Gives me a chance to show off a little more. Bypass your remote devices.’

Sam can’t help but smile. She understands that kind of motivation. “So what do you want?” she asks. “Why bring me out here, why crack my systems, at all? Trying to prove to me how good you are? It’s not like you’ve mined my systems, or shut me down. Do you even have a reason, apart from making me dance to the tune in your head?”

‘Samantha, isn’t it?’ Oracle asks. ‘That’s the name you took after you left, I believe. Decided not to keep Drake?’

Sam feels her spine stiffen at the mention of that name. “How the fuck do you know that?”

‘It’s my business to know these things. Did you think I’d ask to meet you before I knew everything about you?’

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Sam snaps. “I left that name behind a long time ago.”

‘Not that long ago,’ Oracle replies. ‘You’re still just a kid, Cypher.’

Sam relaxes at the use of her nickname. Back on semi familiar ground now, at least. “I don’t need that name. I don’t need anything from that time, especially not that name. I’m doing good on my own.”

A pause, then someone clears their throat behind Sam. She spins around and pushes up her goggles to see a woman with long red hair, glasses, dressed against the cold, sitting calmly in a wheelchair.

“You may be good on your own,” the woman says with a smirk. “But you can do better with me.”

*

“Why me?” It’s about all Sam can think of to ask. She’s staring at the complex computer set up with something like awe, her fingers itching to get at it. It’s so beautiful that it almost brings tears to her eyes.

“You can do things that I can’t.” Oracle wheels herself Sam’s side.

“Somehow I don’t believe that.”

Oracle snorts and wheels herself to the main desk. “You have a talent for making things, Sam. And I need someone like that. Someone to make things for me. And someone to field test them.”

“And you want me to do that?”

“If you’ll stay here. If you’ll work with me.”

Sam looks around, then breaks out in a grin. “You know there’s no chance of me saying no.”

“There’s always a chance. Welcome home, Samantha.”

“Home.” Sam tries the word, and nods. It’s right, this time. “What do I call you then? Is it just Oracle?”

Oracle pulls her hair up in a bun. “No. My name is Barbara. Barbara Gordon. And we have work to do.”

*

“You’re getting better every day.”

Sam holds her crouch a few seconds longer, not wanting to give away the twinge of pain she’s feeling from the bad landing; then she straightens and takes a few cautious steps.

“Thanks,” she says, still not entirely sure how to take the compliments. She’s been getting them a lot lately, and it’s not something she’s ever experienced before. “It helps that you have some pretty bad ass equipment here to practice on.” She motions to indicate the gymnastic set up.

“It’s pretty basic stuff. I almost got rid of it, years ago,” Barbara says with a sad smile, then shrugs. “I’m glad I didn’t. And that you can use it.”

“This, was yours?” Sam catches the towel Barbara throws at her. She knows that Barbara wasn’t always in that chair. It’s public record, what happened to her. How the Joker tried to kill her.

“Surprised?” There’s bitterness in Barbara’s voice but she just shakes her head. “Sorry. You think you’re over something, and then it sort of sneaks up on you. It did used to be mine, Sam. A long time ago. I’m sure you know what happened to me. I can’t imagine you haven’t thoroughly researched my past, not once I told you my name.”

“You know everything about me. Who I am, who I used to be. Of course I researched you, and I still know hardly anything about you. I mean, I’m okay with that, for now. Because it gives me a challenge.” She smiles here. “I know you were a gymnast. I just didn’t know you had all this equipment. So any new information is good because sometimes I feel kinda like you’ve got me in an awkward position.”

“Welcome to life in the vigilante world,” Barbara replies with a soft laugh. “But you have a point, Sam. I know I hoarde my secrets. It’s what I do, after all. I protect the lives, the identities, of people very close to me. I guess it’s more habit now, than anything else. I’ve let you in here, I’ve opened up so much to you. And I guess that it may be time to tell you this, as well. If you want me to. Or would you rather discover it on your own?”

“I’d rather you told me,” Sam decides after a few moments of thought. “In case I don’t like what I find. I’d rather hear it from you.”

“Get cleaned up then,” Barbara says. “It’ll give me some time to get my speech together.”

“I think you’ve had this speech prepared since you first invited me back here,” Sam says, but heads to the showers anyway.

“You’d be wrong,” Barbara calls after her.

Sam takes her time cleaning up, partly out of nerves and partly to give Barbara some time. When she joins her in the main room, all the monitors are off.

“Acrobatic and technological skills aside, Sam, you have a gift for investigation,” Barbara begins. “It’s one of the things that make you so good at your chosen profession. You dig, and you don’t stop. You’ve supported yourself by doing that. Not always in the most ethical ways, but we’ve all had to step over that line. You have your own morality. It caught my eye. I’d been following your activities for several months before I contacted you. I had to be sure, after all.”  
“Sure that I wasn’t an asshole? That I wouldn’t take the knowledge of your identity and sell it?” Sam leans back on the edge of the desk. “Or sure that you would be able to bribe me into staying quiet?”

“Bribery works sometimes, but rarely for any extended length of time. I wanted you on my side, Sam. To work with me. And I could never have gotten that from you with bribery. You can’t buy loyalty with fear.”

Sam presses her lips together and nods. “Well you got my attention through my fear.”

“But it isn’t why you stay.”

“No,” Sam agrees. “It isn’t.”

“I won’t betray you, Sam. I am your friend. Your secrets are your own, and I’m not going to reveal them. It isn’t my place.”

“I know that, Barbara.” Sam looks down at her feet. “So you decided you could trust me. Why? I’ve bribed plenty of people, blackmailed them. I’ve hacked almost every system in Gotham, and I’ve cracked dozens of federal agencies. How do you trust someone like me?”

“Because I’ve done the same things, Sam.” Barbara smiles and raises her eyebrows. “Not for money, but for favours, and for other things. We’ve both done it to survive, plain and simple. And you always kept to your promises. And that’s part of it, yes. But there was one main reason.”

“As if that wasn’t enough?”

Barbara reaches over and taps out a few things on the keyboard, brings up a picture of Batman and Robin onto the main screen, then looks very pointedly at Sam.

It’s an older picture, not the current Robin, Sam notes. Older costume. And she knows exactly what Barbara is referring to. The picture cycles to one of the current Batgirl, then to the current Robin.

“You know who they are,” Barbara states. “You’ve known for a long time. It’s what brought you to my attention. You were investigating all of them to such a degree that it was like waving a red flag in my face. I was raised by a cop. I know an investigation when I see one. And I can tell when someone’s found their answers. And you found them, Sam, didn’t you.”

Sam rubs her forehead and lets her shoulders slump. This was it. Barbara was going to demand the information from her, and Sam was going to have to refuse. There’s a reason she hadn’t done anything with that information. She respects them, the Bats; she doesn’t want anything to endanger them. And this is it. She’ll have to give over their identities, or leave.

Barbara laughs suddenly, and reaches out to rest a hand on Sam’s knee. “I think you have the wrong idea,” she says, her voice warm. “I’ve known their identities for a lot longer than you, Sam. I was congratulating you for not telling anyone else. You could have had almost anything you wanted if you’d used that information. But you didn’t. And that, more than anything else, impressed me.”

Sam’s head snaps up, her eyes wide. But of course Barbara knew. She wouldn’t be the Oracle if she didn’t know, after all. Her eyes go back to the screen as the picture changes again, to the old Batgirl, the original one. The one Sam had never been able to figure out the identity of. And it suddenly clicks in her head. The long red hair, the gymnastic skills.

“You,” she says, barely a whisper. “That was you.”

“I was a very talented gymnast,” Barbara says. “And I was smart, and I was bored. I found something I was good at, Sam.”

“You were Batgirl for a long time,” Sam says. “And then you weren’t.”

“I’ll never walk again. I’ll never be Batgirl again. But it’s ok, because that’s life, Sam. I can’t leap from roof to roof, but I can train people I think are right for that job, and I can do everything in my power to keep them safe. So that’s what I do, and that’s what I’m training you to do. Not to be Batgirl, but to be me. To help me, and to do the things I can’t do. I need you to trust me like I trust you, and that’s why I’m telling you this.”

“I knew you helped the Bats out, sure,” Sam says after a drawn out silence. “Of course you do. I’ve overheard you talking to them and I’ve read your logs. I thought you wouldn’t mind or you would have had better encryption on them. But I’ve never seen them here.”

“Of course you haven’t,” Barbara says with a laugh. “I do need you to go out and run field tests on devices, but it also gets you out when I need a face to face meeting with them. I’d, like you to meet them. I’ve talked to them about it already. Batman, he isn’t enthusiastic about the idea yet, so you won’t meet him or Robin. He’ll accept you in time, Sam, but you do need to give him time. And Nightwing isn’t in Gotham right now. But Batgirl and the Black Bat want to meet you.”

“They, they do? Me?”

“They’ve had to listen to me talk about you for months now. They’re curious, Sam. And they’ve seen you around, even if you haven’t seen them. Plus, some of those devices you’ve been making for me have come in very handy for them. I know they’d like to thank you for that.”

“Thank me?” Sam blinks several times in shock. “One of the Bats want to thank me?”

“It’s not that unusual, you know. They’re good people. I would have set up a meet already, but there’s some other things we need to talk about. Sam, you aren’t obligated to tell them anything. I want you to feel safe around them. But they’re going to figure it out. You can’t fault them for wanting to find out about you.”

Sam pushes a hand through her hair and paces for a moment. “The last time I told someone, the only time, it didn’t work out so well,” she finally says. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do that again.”

“It’s going to be a few more years before you have any hope of getting any kind of surgery done,” Barbara points out. “You need to tell them something.”  
“How about that it’s none of their business?”

“Just like me being Batgirl once was none of your business?”

Sam frowns and turns away. “I want to leave Tim Drake in the past, Barbara. He was never me.”

“But he was. He isn’t now, but he was. They’re going to be curious. They may not ask you directly, but they will look in to it. You need to be prepared for that. I won’t say anything, it isn’t my place. But they aren’t going to just leave it alone. You need to figure out what you’re going to do.”

“I want to meet them,” Sam decides. “As for the rest, we’ll see. I don’t need to say anything about it yet and I need time to think about it.”

Barbara smiles widely and nods. “I’ll let you know when I have it set up,” she says. “In the mean time, why don’t you log in the comms system. I have errands to run.”

“The comms?” Sam watches as Barbara brings up all the screens again. “You mean...”

“You can handle this,” Barbara assures her and moves back from the desk. “They’ll know you aren’t me. But they also know that if I’ve let you take this on, you’re ready for it. They won’t have a problem.”

“You sure about that?” Sam pulls her chair up to the desk. “All of them?”

“Well, maybe not all of them. Not that it matters. They can accept it or they can get their information somewhere else,” Barbara says.

Sam lets her hands hover over the keyboard until a message light starts blinking on one monitor. She looks over to Barbara, who just swings her chair around and heads away. “Okay, you’re ready for this,” she says to herself and logs on, surprised that, instead of the Oracle programme coming up like it had before, Sam’s old Cypher avatar displays in a window.

 **You’ve earned this** reads out a message, and it sets Sam at ease more than anything else.

She takes a deep breath and slips on her goggles, and the headset, and activates the mic. “This is Cypher speaking, go ahead caller,” she says.

There’s a silence for a few moments before Batgirl’s voice comes over the line. “Long time listener, first time caller,” she replies then, a laugh in her voice. “Welcome to the family, Cypher.”

“Glad to hear from you, caller. What’s on your mind?” It makes her smile when Batgirl laughs, and she starts typing as Batgirl begins detailing what she needs.

*

Sam stares at herself in the mirror, runs a hand down her flat chest, skinny more than lean but she’s working on that; long, thin fingers trace over her ribs. She’d once thought, in a panicked fit of anxiety, that no matter what changes she could make to her body, if anyone were to look close enough, her ribs were always going to give her away. A bit of research helped to ease that fear, though.

Her hands move down over her stomach, smoothing down the front of her panties, making sure everything is in place. One day, she promises herself. One day it’s going to be different. It’ll be real. I can live like this for a few more years if it means I be myself after it.

She takes a deep breath and puts those thoughts aside. It’s not going to happen yet, and there’s no use thinking about it.

She fastens her bra on, slips the inserts in and adjusts everything, then pulls on the rest of her clothes. She spends a few moments to make sure everything looks right. A little gel in her hair to give it a bit of spike, a little makeup. She keeps her goggles around her neck though, instead of pushed up on her forehead.

She breathes deeply and smiles, lets herself relax in to the tucking, the fake breasts. One day Timothy will be gone forever. Only Samantha will be left.

But not today. Today she has a meeting with Barbara, and with Batgirl and the Black Bat, and she needs to keep all her wits about her for that.

*

It turns out to be less of a meeting, and more of a party. Sam raises an eyebrow at the balloons and streamers, and when she takes a step in to the living room, glitter and confetti showers down on her.

“I’m never going to get that glitter out,” Barbara sighs.

Sam doesn’t get a chance to reply because the blonde - Sam recognises her as Stephanie Brown, Batgirl - grabs her by the hand and pulls her forward, to where a cake is displayed on the coffee table. Another woman is stood there, short black hair, smiling hesitantly. Sam looks at Barbara, then at the other two women.

“Batgirl,” she says finally, pointing at the blonde. “And the Black Bat.”

“Steph and Cass,” the blonde says. “I’m Steph. Stephanie Brown, but Babs told me you already figured that out. This is Cassandra Cain. I know the cake looks a bit, wonky. But it’ll taste good, I promise.”

“It’s cake,” Sam manages. “Of course it will.” Even if it’s covered in glitter, she thinks. She tilts her head to the side and thinks if she squints, as well, it might resemble a bat.

“That’s the spirit.” Steph rubs her hands together and grins. “Anyway, me and Cass, we wanted to meet you, as ourselves. If Babs trusts you, it’s good enough for us. We were, you know, a family. Before she took you in. And that makes you family now. So we thought a party would be better than some clandestine, costumed meeting in a dark alley.”

“I will kill you if you hurt my family,” Cass speaks up, and the threat isn’t any less just because she is in the process of scooping frosting off the cake with her fingers.

Sam clears her throat and nods. “I hope it never comes to that,” she says sincerely.

“It’s just Cass’ way of saying welcome,” Steph says in a stage whisper. “Okay, time for cake! Babs, could you turn the music on?” She turns her back on Sam then, to cut the cake.

Sam turns to Barbara, who is smiling softly at them. “Thanks,” is all she can say, returning the smile.

“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t had to play party games with Steph before,” Barbara says, and reaches over, and turns on the stereo.


End file.
